Why are you fighting and whining about low pop/high pop servers DURING A BETA? The idea is play around, feel for the game, get an idea of what's up and down, not OMG I HAVE TO BE THE VERY BEST BEFORE I TAKE ON THE ELITE FOUR or some lame notion like that. So what the population is not in the millions, it won't matter in 2 weeks anyway.

As for the preferred server, I suggest picking what you want, or better yet where your friends are heading. Play a game for fun, not for the idea of becoming Square Enix's number one FFXIV player.

Because we want to reserve our names on the server we end up rolling in.

Don't get me wrong, I know what makes an MMO fun. Regardless of where your friends are, if the server can't support your needs, you won't have fun. And low/high population does play a key roll in the enjoyment of an MMO. Economy, group formations, class distribution all play key rolls on what you can do and how well you do it and all that is directly affected by the size of the server. So, excuse me if I'd like to increase my chances of enjoying an MMO with guys I've known for years.

Uh yeah....you're worried about a name? I think you won't have to worry about it in XIV, since, you know, I DOUBT HIGHLY THAT ANYONE WILL HAVE YOUR FULL ORIGINAL NAME. I mean seriously, if you're worried about a name, you're probably gonna use some lame anime name or one that is beyond popular (I'm looking at those jerky Cloud Strife lamebrains). I'm not worried, cuz come the day I register, Agent DeeVeeOne will be available.

In any case, how about you all just get on a server, and figure it out from there? I honestly don't think worrying about it now will benefit anyone, simply because in about 6 months, the populations will probably jump again due to PS3 users getting in. And no offense to you gentlemen and ladies, but I still don't have much faith that XIV is ready for full play yet, and many of the players will ditch during the first year. If they fix all the problems for pc in the next 5 months, once the PS3 release arrives, I expect a bevy of new ones to arise.

Long story short, don't start fighting yet, there's plenty to bicker and rage about soon enough.

I was hoping crafting recipes would be built in, but it seems not. Have to hand-jam them the old fashioned way while pouring through a fucking wiki, which is annoying since the game is capable of recipe management. I know it's possible because guild leves let you click a button and put all the components in for you.

I was hoping crafting recipes would be built in, but it seems not. Have to hand-jam them the old fashioned way while pouring through a fucking wiki, which is annoying since the game is capable of recipe management. I know it's possible because guild leves let you click a button and put all the components in for you.

Or perhaps this is yet another aspect unfinished in the game. Bah.

You can buy books with guild marks but nobody has gotten enough of them to purchase them to see what they do. Also it seems some random guildleves will reward you with a recipie but nobody knows where it gets stored or how it gets utilized cause it's not listed in the inventory or loot tables and the chatbox is still fubar for systems notification. If they can give us a real recipie book and fix the guildleve auto fail on DC I'll be satisfied.

For the record they've increased the leve difficulty quite a lot and nerfed the skill gains into the fucking toilet, and there still isn't any low level gear at vendors aside from level 1 starter shit. The level 9 gear would be helpful cause you need level 10+ to even be able to attempt to craft level 9 gear and level 15 before you can do it reliably. The interdependence of crafts is also highly annoying. I shouldn't need to level 3 crafts to make fucking arrows.

Christ, tell me about it. The interdependence for crafting is insanity. They're going down the same road Everquest 2 did in its first few years by introducing layers of complexity that results in only poopsockers bothering to put forth the effort. SOE had to simplify it and the game became better for it. I'll likely just stick to crafting leves and not much else to slowly build them all up until some organization occurs in the markets, because the lack of an auction house is annoying.

The guild leves I've done so far plastered the recipes into the chat box. Basically I could have just pulled up the wiki. I mean, if they aren't going to give us recipe book capability, then what the fuck is the point? We're no farther than we were in FFXI and this is supposed to be a next-gen MMO.

Then again, this could be a two-fold deal again... I made a fortune in FFXI due to most being resentful of its crafting system and avoiding it.

I did 5 crafts in beta 3, trust me you've got the right idea. I spent hours grinding recipies to skill and it didn't come close to how effective local leves were. I'm cool with only 8 regional leves since you can share but with nine DoH classes, we need 16 locals so you can at least level 4 concurrently. At the very least when we get everyone together we can have a crafting blueprint for roles. If we work it like a factory it'll be easier for all involved.

For what it's worth, Mysidia is the unofficial "JP server" where all the JP beta testers flocked to. This would explain why it surged in population so quickly.

Also, I play the beta through Steam, so my Steam ID is Meicyn. If you have Steam on your computer, I recommend using it. It's a good way to see who's playing and who isn't. Right now I'm working on a stupid essay. Booooooooooo.

Square seriously needs to unfuck their patcher. It's absurd how unreliable it is, and reflects how this game is NOT READY for primetime. Even Sega, as incompetent as they are, knows how to write reliable patching software. You've got major issues if your patcher doesn't work right.

After turning it on, I immediately hit cancel, browse to where the torrent file for the patch is located under the documents directory, and use uTorrent to complete the patch in about 10 seconds instead of sitting there for half an hour to try to get a file the size of a low bitrate MP3. Fix your shit, Square.